For one, as a structural engineer, your work is highly visible. The structures you put up will always be visible, for all people to see. And every time you see a structure standing tall, and you know that you are the one who designed it, your heart is filled with joy. So, in this regard, there is great career satisfaction in structural engineering.

Secondly, as a structural engineer, you end up being a highly respected member of the society. People are bound to accord you some respect, whenever they see the structures you put up, especially if those are beautiful structures that have withstood the test of time.

Thirdly, as a structural engineer, you stand to earn decent sums of money. It is highly unlikely that you would suffer from want of material things, if you have good structural engineering skills. Your bank accounts are likely to be always in good condition: to such an extent that you could start receiving unsolicited credit card offers from various banks. That is how, for instance, you would end up getting a capital one mail offer when you least expect it. This would be a situation where, in your mailbox, you receive a letter containing the capital one mail offer code which you can then use to apply for a credit card. Then you realize that it would have been very hard for you to be getting such offers, if it wasn’t for your structural engineering skills (and the earnings you get on account of such skills).

Fourthly, you realize that structural engineering skills are always in demand.

And fifth, you realize that with solid structural engineering skills, you can get work pretty much anywhere in the world. So this is not like, say, the legal field where your skill are only useful when you are within the nation where you were admitted to the bar. With structural engineering skills, the demand is global, and that can be a huge advantage.

Engineering projects come with budgets. You are supposed to ensure that every engineering project you work on is completed within the budget. But this is not always easy. Unexpected costs keep on creeping, threatening to knock you off the budget. Furthermore, things often cost much more than anticipated, threatening to knock you further off the budget. Generally, in all engineering projects, it is very hard to come up with cost estimates that are entirely accurate. It is also very hard to think of all the costs that are likely to be incurred in the cost of an engineering project. For instance, it may be hard to foresee a situation where it rains in the course of an engineering project, forcing you to pump water out of the project site. Or it may be hard to foresee a situation where the engineering project coincides with a severe drought, forcing you to buy water in a bowser, just to keep the engineering project going on.

There are nonetheless some things you can do to ensure that you complete an engineering project within the budget.

Ensure that the budget is realistic, to start out with.

Include a provision for contingencies in the budget.

Manage the project finances properly.

The last bit, on managing the project finances properly, deserves special attention. You need to create a system to ensure that all monies that are disbursed in the course of the engineering project are well accounted for. You may need to set up a voucher system, and ensure that the people signing for the vouchers are willing to be surcharged in case the money is not spent properly. You may even need to hire a finance professional, to help you get the engineering project(s) you are working on completed within the budgets. True, the finance professional will be costly to maintain (in terms of salary, allowances and so on). Yet he can help you save much more money, and get the engineering projects you are working on completed within the budget(s).

All engineering projects have an impact on the environment. That is why most governments require environmental impact assessment reports to be submitted, before they can give approvals for engineering projects. Therefore, the people who are undertaking the engineering projects are supposed to identify the specific ways in which their projects are likely to impact the environment. Then they are supposed to state the measures they intend to put in place, to mitigate the environmental impact.

Some of the ways in which engineering projects tend to impact the environment include:

Through noise pollution: engineering projects often entail the use of heavy machinery. Such machinery produces a lot of noise. The noise can cause a great deal of disturbance to the people living near the area where the engineering project is taking place. Sometimes, the noise is enough to cause hearing problems to the people living in the area where the engineering project is taking place.

Through the production of dust: the heavy machinery that is used in engineering projects tends to grind soil as it moves around, leading to the production of dust. The dust, when inhaled, can have a deleterious effect on the health of the people living near the area where the engineering project is taking place.

Through water utilization: engineering projects often require lots of water. Oftentimes, the water has to be drawn from the source that is relied upon by the community living in the area where the engineering project is being undertaken. This can at times lead to a situation where the community members have to deal with water rationing issues.

Through the drainage systems: sometimes, engineering projects interfere with local drainage systems (at least in the short term). That can at often lead to issues like flooding, or malfunctioning of sewerage systems, resulting in considerable inconvenience to the members of the surrounding community.

There are two ways in which you can become an engineer. One ways is by enrolling for a college degree in your desired engineering field. The other ways is by signing up for an apprenticeship program. In today’s article, we will be focusing on the latter approach, as we try to answer the question on how exactly you can become an engineer through apprenticeship.

Now there are 5 key steps you need to follow, if you are keen on becoming an engineer through apprenticeship:

Identify the specific engineering field you wish to pursue

Identify a firm with an apprenticeship program in your desired field

Apply for the apprenticeship

Go through the apprenticeship interview

Complete the apprenticeship program, to become an engineer

There are several benefits that you stand to get, if you opt to become an engineer through apprenticeship. For one, you will get paid as you learn. Therefore, you won’t lack money to pay your basic bills, even as you train to become an engineer. If, for instance, you use a Metro PCS phone, you can be assured that you will always have money to pay your phone bills, at the metro pcs pay bill online portal. That is because apprentices are paid just like the other employees at the firms they apprentice at. You therefore shouldn’t have problems when you want to make a metro pcs payment — or pay for any other basic bill.

Furthermore, having opted to take the apprenticeship route, you will get lots of practical exposure. Unlike college-educated engineers, who tend to know lots of theory but have very little practical experience, you will have both the theoretical knowledge and practical exposure. You will therefore have higher chances of succeeding in your engineering career.

On yet another level, in the course of your apprenticeship, you will get an opportunity to interact and network with the people who run the local engineering industry in your area. Consequently, it should be easier for you to get employment, once you complete the apprenticeship program.

A considerable number of the people who are admitted into college engineering programs don’t graduate. They drop out along the way. In fact, in engineering faculties, is has become an accepted fact that, inevitably, a good number of the students who are admitted won’t graduate. It has come to be accepted that some students will just have to drop out. Yet it is a sad state of affairs. The students who have to drop out of engineering courses will have lost a lot of time, which they can’t fully recover. And whereas their parents may have placed lots of hopes on them (and spent quite a bit of money), such hopes and investments come to naught when they drop out of the engineering courses.

Thankfully, there are a number of things you can do, to increase chances of completing an engineering course successfully.

The main thing you need to do is manage your time well. Managing your time well can be, admittedly, hard if you are holding down a part-time job, on top of being an engineering student. For instance, you may be working on a part-time basis at, say, Darden restaurants, on top of being an engineering student. This means that you’d have to be visiting the krowd darden login page, signing in there, and checking your work schedule to ensure that it doesn’t conflict with your study program. Yet there are times when you’d inevitably go to the krowd login page, sign in there, and check your work schedule, only to find that your work schedule is in conflict with your study schedule.

On top of managing your time well, if you want to complete an engineering program successfully, you also need to:

Attend all classes (or at least attend as many classes as you can)

Take lab sessions seriously

Start preparing for all exams in good time

Ensure that you are well rested and relaxed before all exams

Ask your instructors for clarifications on concepts you don’t understand

If you are a civil or mechanical engineer, you are likely to be part of a bridge engineering project at some point in your career. It could be a modest project, where you are engaged to design a simple footbridge over a busy highway. Or could be a major project, where you are engaged as part of the team designing a huge bridge across a sea/ocean creek. Either way, you are likely to find the task of designing and building a bridge challenging, yet exciting at the same time. You know that you have to get everything right, if the bridge is to be safe and durable. And that is where you are likely to find yourself considering factors like:

The load to be borne by the bridge

The size of gap to be bridged

The terrain where the bridge is to be set up.

The (typical) weather conditions at the bridge location.

The funds available for construction of the bridge.

The later consideration, on availability of funds, deserves special comment. For it is the main determinant of the type of bridge you can afford to design. Let’s take, for instance, an assignment where you are required to build a bridge over a sea creek. You may desire a conventional bridge, that connects smoothly with the road on both sides of the creek. But if the funding available is too limited, you could find yourself having to do a suspended bridge – which is functional, but lacks the smooth connection to the road on both sides of the creek that you’d otherwise have wanted. Remember, financing is usually a key challenge in these sorts of projects. Oftentimes, the financing for engineering projects comes from people’s taxes. Yet people can’t afford to pay too much tax. You always have to keep the average worker, and the state of his finances in mind, while working out how much to tax. Take, for instance, a person working at the US Postal Service. That means he gets his paychecks by visiting the lite blue usps employee login page, and signing in there. Yet you can also be assured that this sort of person is likely to complain bitterly, and feel demoralized, if he logs into the portal at www.liteblue.USPS.gov, only to find that he has been taxed too much. So there are limits to taxation. And this in turn means that public finances for engineering projects are limited. For you as an engineer, it means that you are likely to face constraints in implementing your plans. You therefore will often have to compromise on some things – as long as the safety isn’t affected.

As an engineer, you will often be called upon to give advice on how to finance engineering projects. Having given people advice on what various engineering projects are likely to cost, people will naturally expect you to be also in a position to advise them on where they can get the money to fund the projects. At the very least, as an engineer, you will be expected to sit (and contribute intelligently) in meetings where matters to do with project financing are discussed. So you really need to be conversant with project financing issues — even if you feel that that is not a core part of your work as an engineer.

As far as public engineering projects go, some of the viable financing options include:

Through tax collections: so this is a simple and straightforward approach, where tax money is collected, and then used to pay for the public engineering projects. At the end of the engineering projects, the public gets various facilities (dams, roads, power supply systems, rail roads… and so on) for day to day use. The viability of this option is in the fact that people are usually ready to pay taxes, as long as the money is used efficiently. Take, for instance, a person who works for a company like PepsiCo. When he goes to check his paystubs at the My pepsico view website, he expects part of his earnings to have been deducted, to cater for various taxes. Indeed, such an employee is likely to be keen on getting his W-2 form, through the Mypepsico portal, on an annual basis, for tax filling purposes… So people are always ready to contribute money to public coffers, as long as the money gets used in an efficient manner. And even those who aren’t willing to pay taxes have no choice in the matter – because the payment of taxes is usually a mandatory affair – whether one feels like it or not.

Through loans: some public engineering projects are financed through loans (which could be concessional or commercial). The loans are then supposed to be repaid through tax collections.

Through grants: unlike the loans, grants are not meant to be repaid. But in most cases, there are stringent conditions that have be met, before grants are given. Some grants come with strings attached.

Through public private partnerships: this is an approach where private entities finance the public engineering projects. Then they are allowed to charge people for the use of the (public) facilities that are constructed in the projects. They keep on charging for the use of such facilities, right up to the time when they recoup their investments, and get some profit on top.

There are several ways in which you can get to know if you were meant to be an engineer. Before venturing out to pursue an engineering career, it is important for you to know if, in the first place, you were meant to be an engineer. If you weren’t meant to be an engineer, but you still push yourself to pursue an engineering career, you will end up encountering certain difficulties. The engineering studies may, for one, prove too hard for you – if you weren’t meant to be an engineer. But even if you somehow manage to complete the engineering studies, chances are that you’d end up being bored with engineering work.

You know that you were meant to be an engineer if:

You naturally find math easy: conversely, if you are one of those people who really struggle with math, you will definitely find it hard to cope with engineering studies. You may actually end up having to drop out.

You have a natural affinity for the physical sciences: so the physical sciences in question here include physics and chemistry, which form the basis for things like material science. If you struggle with such sciences, it will be very hard for you to cope with engineering studies.

You naturally have curiosity to know how things work: you could be one of those folks who like opening things up, to see the components and try to understand how the components work together. Even online, such folks are interested in trying to understand how various processes pan out. This is like where you may give one such person a gift card, and refer them to www.mygiftcardsite.com (the portal where they can manage the gift card online). But once they get to the portal (at mygiftcardsite.com), they end up spending a lot of time, even after checking their card’s balance – as they try to figure out how the portal works. If you are one such person, then you probably were meant to be an engineer. You will definitely find the engineering studies easy, because engineering studies revolve around trying to figure out how things work — and making things work.

You have a natural affinity for pushing projects through: an engineer is not just a lab-based designer. An engineer is also a project manager. Therefore if, on top of being naturally good in math and physical sciences, you also have an affinity for pushing projects through, you will have an easier time working as an engineer. Remember, pushing projects through isn’t easy. It often entails having to clash with people, and deal with lots of nastiness. But there are folks who thrive on such, and they tend to succeed at engineering work – especially field engineering work.

You have two key options, when it comes to managing an engineering firm. In the first instance, you can opt to hire a professional manager, to help you in managing the firm. Alternatively, you can opt to manage the firm yourself. If it is a big firm, with numerous employees handling many different projects simultaneously, it would make a lot of sense to hire a professional manager to help you manage it. Conversely, if it is a small firm, with just a handful of employees, and handling just a few simple projects, you may be in a position to manage it yourself. Whether you opt to manage the engineering firm yourself or to hire a professional manager, some of the important things to pay attention to will include:

The firm’s finances: the objective here is to ensure that the firm’s financial resources are well accounted for. The ultimate objective is to ensure that the firm is always able to meet its financial obligations, and that it is always able to turn in a profit.

The firm’s human resource: your aim here is to ensure that the firm’s workers are fully productive, and anything that can hinder their productivity is dealt with. There is also an element of accounting here: as you try to ensure that your payroll is accurate, and that the employees are only paid for the hours they actually work. To this end, as the firm grows, may be forced to set up a HR portal for the employees. The portal would probably have to be something similar to the Nordstrom employees website: which is accessed through the MyNordstrom Employee Login page. You therefore would have to set up such a portal for your engineering firm’s employees. Then you’d need to have something similar to the MyNordstrom Employee Login guide to help your employees in accessing the portal that you would be setting up for them.

The firm’s operations: the goal here is to ensure that the engineering firm is always in a position to complete the engineering projects it gets to work on in a timely manner (and with a decent quality of workmanship). This is only way that the firm would be able to get more projects in the future.

The firm’s marketing: the objective here would be to ensure that the firm has an steady supply of work, so as to ensure that it is always generating revenues and that its resources are well utilized. The marketing may involve advertising the firm, networking with people who can award projects to the firm… and other activities of that nature.

One of the ways in which you can take your engineering career to the next level is by enrolling for a Masters degree. Most of the practitioners in the engineering field only have one (Bachelor‘s) degree. Therefore, by obtaining a Masters degree in engineering, you will have a chance to stand out from the pack.

A chance to specialize

By enrolling for a Masters degree in engineering, you will have a chance to specialize in a particular engineering field. This would, in turn, open for you opportunities that would otherwise have been unavailable for you, if you hadn’t obtained the masters degree. With such specialized skills you can, for instance, get to work as a consultant in highly complex engineering projects.

An academic career

On another note, once you obtain a Masters degree in engineering, you will be well on your way towards an academic career. Actually, with (just) a Masters degree in engineering, you may be able to work as a research assistant or as an assistant professor. This would be another avenue for you to earn money — on top of what you could have earned as an engineering practitioner.

Improved earnings

By simply obtaining a Masters degree in engineering, you may be able to double or even triple your earnings. Further, by obtaining a Masters degree, you will have a chance to access more income streams.

The steps you need to follow

There are 3 key steps that you will need to follow, while seeking to enroll for a Masters degree in engineering.

Firstly, you will need to identify the Masters degree program you will be enrolling for. This should ideally be a program that will give you the (specialized) skills you require, and ideally in a well-regarded university.

Secondly you will need to get the resources you need to finance your Masters degree studies. This may mean applying for student loans or scholarships. You will also need to find the time to study for the masters degree. If, for instance, you work for a company like Lowes, you can visit the Myloweslife portal, to check your work schedules, to see if you would have enough time to study for the degree.

The third step then is to apply for a position in the engineering program. As long as you are well qualified, you should be easily admitted. Then you would be taken through the coursework, typically followed by a research project, in order to earn the Masters degree in engineering.